


In Loving You With My Whole Heart

by Lapin



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Modern AU, New Year's Kiss, Rock Band AU, Rock and Roll, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 06:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3165293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapin/pseuds/Lapin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the song comes on the radio, Ori is determined not to forgive Fíli. But it's not the first song Fíli has written about him, and it likely won't be the last.</p><p>Rock Band AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Loving You With My Whole Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so [perkynurples](http://archiveofourown.org/users/perkynurples/pseuds/perkynurples) wrote a rockstar AU I really liked, [Durin's Bane](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2784311/chapters/6248702) and I kind of wanted to write a silly New Year's fic with rock stars myself. Theirs is really, really good, and you should all check it out.
> 
> This is silly, fun fluff, for my part.
> 
> NOTES: A whole section accidentally got deleted in the original post, but it's fixed now

Ori lasts all of a moment in the room before he's back out, dragging Kíli with him. He catches him by surprise enough that he can push Kíli against the wall and hold him there, hissing, “You didn't tell me Fíli was here too!”

Kíli looks down at him. “It's the holidays...and he's my brother...I assumed you would work it out...”

“ _Kíli!_ ” 

“Right, right, assumptions, ass, you, me, all that...” He waves a hand, mocking Ori's voice enough Ori stomps on his foot. “Son-of-a-bitch, Ori!” He shoves Ori off, glaring at him half-heartedly. “It's been a few months, already. You two aren't over this yet?” 

It's not the question, it's the way he asks, in that hopeful little lilt, that has Ori narrowing his eyes at him. “Kíli, please tell me you are not actually so stupid you thought if you put us in the same room together, we would, I don't know -” He can't quite finish the sentence, but he doesn't need to, because Kíli looks guilty. “No, Kíli, you cannot be serious.” 

“Oh, so you've got a new boyfriend?” Kíli asks, even though he knows Ori doesn't. 

And he'd been witness to Ori's few disastrous attempts at dating again, in any case, so it wasn't like Ori could say he was doing fine without. “You're twenty-two,” he says, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning against the wall. “You're too old to be playing Parent Trap.” 

“You're forgetting to factor in how incredibly immature I can be,” Kíli points out. “He hasn't written anything good since you two broke up.” Ori rolls his eyes up at him.

“Your newest single says otherwise.” Ori had been cooking Kíli and Gimli dinner when the song came on the radio, and by the time the song had hit the chorus, Ori was glaring at them both while Gimli very slowly dragged the chopping knife out of Ori's reach. “I still hate you for that.” 

“You don't want to see the ones that I managed to get from him. They were either so angry they could be used as evidence in court, or they made people want to slit their wrists.” He makes his best sad face at Ori. “Please? Just be nice?” 

He shoulders his bag. “Or I could just leave, and avoid this.” 

“Ori, come on!” But Ori waves him off, uninterested in anything involving the Durin brothers, or the rest of the family. He's going to go home and spend the holidays in his bed with his dog and Netflix, like he wanted to before Kíli convinced him to come out. Really, he should have known Kíli was up to something, he's always up to something, especially when it comes to tormenting Ori.

Unfortunately, that's a Durin trait, because he all but crashes into Dís near the door. The moment she recognises him, her face lights up, and another Durin trait is them being too tall and too strong for their own good, which means he can't escape when she hugs him so tight he can't breathe for a moment, kisses him on both cheeks, then refuses to let go after, her arm around his shoulders. “Oh, Ori!” she exclaims. “I haven't seen you in an age!” 

“Hello,” he says, smelling the wine on her. Not good, not for his escape. 

“What are you doing here?” When Ori doesn't say anything right away, she asks excitedly, “Are you here with Fíli?” 

“No,” he answers firmly, feeling bad for it when her face falls. “Kíli invited me, but I need to go now.” She's not drunk enough not to guess why he must be leaving, and she looks even sadder, reminding Ori where Kíli gets that stupid face from. Fíli too, but Ori doesn't care about that any more, or at least he's not supposed to. “It is nice to see you again.” 

It is. He's missed her and her home, the way everything always felt so welcoming. 

Her expression is all hope, making his stomach twist. “You know, you weren't kicked out or anything. You could come by any time, for dinner, or tea, just to say hello, let me see how you are.” It's not good how much Ori wants to take her up on it. But soon enough, Fíli will start seeing someone new, and Ori's presence will become that awkward elephant in the room. He'd much rather make a clean break now than still be getting invitations everyone hopes he turns down in two or so years. It'll hurt all the more if he drags it out. 

“Maybe,” he says, so as not to hurt her feelings. 

She still doesn't let go, unfortunately, which means he has to let her guide him away from his exit and into the sitting room, where Kíli is now, sitting with Gimli, Tauriel, and of course, Fíli. There are instruments strewn around the whole house, and people are getting drunk enough to start asking them to play.

Ori doesn't want to hear it, so hopefully he can escape before they give in. 

“Now, don't disappear,” Dís orders, squeezing him again. “I'll be right back.” 

He only gets a moment to even think of getting away before he's spotted again. “Ori!” Bilbo greets loudly, setting his wine glass down and coming over to embrace Ori. “I didn't know you were coming!” He said his name loud enough Fíli has to have heard, but he doesn't look up from his beer, or Gimli, still looking at whatever is in the notebook Gimli is holding. Music, more than likely. Ori hates himself for even checking. 

“Kíli asked me,” he says to Bilbo, not looking at anything really. There has to be a way to bow out gracefully, but Kíli is his usual excuse for having to leave, so that won't work. “It's good to see you. How's your nephew?” 

“Frodo? Wonderful, wonderful, he's fourteen this year, you know.” Actually, Ori didn't, though he could have guessed it, but trust Bilbo to be polite enough to remind him. “You missed his debut, as a matter of fact. That lot there let him help with some of the music for the new album. He's very excited, couldn't wait to tell all his friends.”

Considering how big the band has gotten in the past year, Ori would say Frodo was likely very popular in school at the moment. He'd be happy for Frodo, if one of the most played songs from the stupid album wasn't about him. 

Maybe Bilbo remembers that, because he rubs his nose and says, “Ah, but, well...well. How have you been? I feel like I haven't spoken to you in forever.” There's little choice but to let Bilbo take him back over to where he was standing with Thorin, of all bloody people, and two of the studio musicians Ori can't remember the names of. 

“I've sold some songs,” Ori says, trying to avoid Thorin's eyes when he starts to glare at Ori. He can't say he blames him. Ori worked almost exclusively for the band and some of their friends until this past year. “Bills, and all.” What does everyone expect, for Ori to starve? Besides, he has his own contract to fulfil. “It's been a good year, all in all, work-wise. Nothing in the Top 40, of course, but enough of them did well.”

“That's wonderful,” Bilbo praises, Ori catching the way he looks up at Thorin meaningfully. 

Thorin offers Ori one of the unopened beers, enough of a peace offering Ori takes it. He needs a drink, though he'd prefer something stronger. Beer is good enough, and gives him something to do with his hands other than grip the strap of his bag. He'd brought some of his new music, like an idiot, thinking he could have a chance to show Kíli and Gimli and Tauriel together, let them see if there was anything they wanted for the band. 

He needs to apologise to Kíli, he realizes. It wasn't Kíli's fault, even if he had been being a bit of an idiot. Ori should have known Fíli would be here. 

By now the two musicians are talking to Thorin about something involving guitars, and though Ori knows more than most about them, he's not inclined to join in. It's easier to talk to Bilbo, get caught up, while he texts an apology to Kíli about before. He hates when he panics and loses his temper. At twenty-five, he should have outgrown it, but just when he thinks he has, it happens again. It's usually got something to do with the Durin family too. 

He dares look over, just to see if Kíli noticed the message, only to accidentally meet Fíli's eyes. Ori looks away quickly, but not before he sees how Fíli's smile turns grim. So he's still angry then. Seems a bit unfair, what with Ori giving him the material for their hit song and all, but that thought is a little bitter, even for him. 

“Have you two talked at all?” Bilbo asks, taking another sip of his wine. “Since the fight?” 

“I wish everyone would stop calling it that,” Ori mutters, drawing his cardigan tighter around himself and taking a long pull of his beer. “It wasn't a fight. We broke up, is all.” It had been stupid, really, to think you stayed with your childhood sweetheart all your life. “I'm surprised he didn't bring anyone, really. Seems like the tabloids have him with someone else every week.” 

And hadn't that _hurt_ , when a week after the gossip had gotten bored with their break-up, they published pictures of Fíli with someone else. They'd been broken up two weeks by then, and Ori had been living like a recluse, humiliated his private life was all over the place, sure it couldn't be any worse, until it of course was. Because for all Fíli had supposedly loved him, he hadn't waited very long. 

Maybe Ori had done something spectacularly stupid in response and picked up some bloke at a bar right away, but it hadn't made him feel any better, so he hadn't done it again. At least Ori wasn't the famous one, and Fíli isn't so very famous anyway. The world had gotten bored with them in that space of a month. Every now and then though, Fíli's picture would be on one, with his arm around someone Ori didn't know, and it was so irritating how much it still bothered him. 

Thorin and the two musicians are looking at him now, the one with the hat laughing at his beer. Ori swears he knows his name, thinks it starts with a 'B', but cannot quite remember. “If you say so, lad,” he says, like he knows anything at all. 

“It's not that big a deal,” Ori replies, because it's not. 

It's not. 

And then a guitar strums, and Ori wants the floor to open up and swallow him. But he turns to look, because he's an adult, and he will act like one, and part of being an adult is dealing with an ex in a mature and responsible way. 

Fíli plucks another chord, and asks, “All right, requests?” 

Oh, sod it. Ori's never felt very adult-like any way. He looks for a way to slip out without being obvious, because he really doesn't want to handle this, and that's his right as an adult. People have gathered closer though, and somehow, he's right in the front. There's no way he can get out without someone seeing, and the only thing worse than hearing Fíli play is Fíli knowing Ori is effected by it in any way. 

He finishes his beer and looks to see if there's anything stronger close at hand. There isn't, damn it. He should have gotten a drink before he let Dís lead him in here. 

He's never wanted a drink more than when, like a rising tide, the people in the room start calling out song names, and one rises in popularity, like it always does: _Claddagh_. 

Without looking up, he can see how Fíli's jaw has clenched, how the rest of the band is looking at him, obviously worried about how this is going to go. He wants Fíli to ask for something else so much, but if he does, everyone will know why, and Fíli always hated having his pride hurt. 

The first notes start, no drums of course, but the song never needed them. Fíli first played it in Ori's dorm room, sitting on Ori's bed with the weak winter light coming in through the window on him and his loose blond hair and worn t-shirt. 

_The promises I make,_ ” Fíli sings, quietly, just like then. “ _I don't think I can keep._ ” 

It doesn't ache, Ori tries to convince himself, because that would mean he really does sometimes listen to that stupid song when he's feeling sad, and wanting to shout at Fíli some more like he did that night in Germany, when Fíli wouldn't pick up the phone, and Ori was the one sitting alone in a hotel room and realizing how pathetic he must be. He doesn't like thinking about how much his stomach had hurt as he booked a ticket on the first flight back to England, and packed his bag up, turning the key into the hotel staff desk before he left. 

How he had sat at the airport, waiting for his flight, and still hoping Fíli would hear the message, come back to the room and find the note, stop him. Only he didn't, of course he didn't. He didn't call Ori until a day later, asking him where he was, and telling Ori how long it had taken him to even notice Ori was gone without words. 

So no, it doesn't hurt to hear Fíli play this stupid bloody song, the one he wrote when things were new and lovely and hopeful between them. 

The damn song finishes, and Ori lives through it somehow, so he uses the opportunity of the applauding people to finally get a real drink. There are more people in here now, too many, and what does it matter, Ori isn't bothered. He doesn't care at all. 

The drink helps with the not caring, at least. The songs move on, into ones that aren't about Ori, thankfully, though he wrote some, and that brings up other memories, just as bad, of Fíli lying in bed with his guitar across his stomach, mindlessly picking out melodies while Ori wrote, the pair of them finding the music together. 

Oh yes, these songs are so much better. Ori wants to die, especially when he sees people have noticed him. He's not famous, not in the slightest, but these people know him after all. Damn, he takes his apology back. Kíli is dead, and then Ori is going to die of embarrassment. But Kíli dies first. 

“Enough,” Fíli says, setting the guitar down at last. “I need a drink.” The rest of them cheer at that, and the crowd groans, asks for another song, but Fíli waves it off with, “Not like you lot don't know them inside and out. Ask my uncles then, why don't you?” 

That gets attention on Thorin, and Frerin across the way, and more encouragement from the crowd. It's rare to hear the original Durin brothers live, and Thorin might fuss, but Ori knows he loves a chance to play every now and then. Dwalin comes out from somewhere, and the two musicians Thorin had been speaking to join them all, leaving Bilbo and Ori. 

“I need some air,” he tells Bilbo, and takes his chance. 

This time, it's Tauriel who catches him, down the hall where it's quieter, because Ori is being punished for leaving his comfort zone. That's all there is to it. She smiles down at him, and offers him the second drink in her hands, some of the punch, it looks like. “Peace offering?” 

“Is that vodka?” he asks, sniffing it. 

“Mostly vodka,” she says, shrugging. “Gimli's mum made the punch, so take your chances.” 

It is mostly vodka, Ori thinks, with a whole lot else. He's never known anyone to drink like the Durin clan. It's not bad though, not with one drink in him and his mood being what it is. “You sounded good,” he says, not wanting to fight. 

“How do you like the new song?” The look on her face tells Ori she knows exactly what he thinks, and he scowls at her. “I'm sorry, but the studio loved it. We at least destroyed the rest of his sorry attempts before anyone else heard them.” She shakes her head, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “They were rather sad, actually.” 

“Kíli said they were perfect to slit your wrists to,” Ori says, wishing he could just be drunk already. 

“He does have a way with words,” she jokes. “Have you written anything new?” 

This is an easier topic; he pulls his notebook out, juggling it and the drink, so she can see which ones he's tabbed off for them, ones he thinks they'll like. “Do you want to see now, or...?” He feels a bit silly, because it occurs to him Tauriel might actually want to enjoy the party. 

“And get you all to myself? Who am I to pass that up?”

They head into one of the rooms Dís allows the band to use for recording and practices, where the guests are forbidden from, and they settle on one of the battered old sofas together, one of the same ones that had been here when the band first started eight years ago, and probably before that, when it had been Thorin's band. 

Ori chooses not to think of how many people have had sex on it. Mostly because he's in no position to judge. 

Tauriel thumbs through the music sheets and the songs Ori doesn't have a real melody for yet, mostly sticking to the tabs, but reading over the others too. Unfortunately, she does skim over some with lyrics Ori doesn't want them to have. She gets to one, and actually looks at him, Ori choosing to sulk into his drink. “You know,” she starts. 

“I don't want to hear it.” 

“He really is sorry,” she says anyway, because they're all horribly nosy. “He just doesn't know what to say any more.” When he keeps sulking, she adds, “He didn't want to play that song either. He won't put it in the set list any more, no matter who asks. The only reason he did is because you were standing there.” 

That doesn't make it any less painful; just the opposite. Ori hasn't really liked these past few months, feeling somehow like he had lost out on something big, something that could have been...something. “We were a mess by the end. It wasn't just him.” Ori had been unreasonable too, and maybe that was why Fíli stayed out all night that last time, because he wanted to get back at Ori for whatever fight they'd had last. 

Whatever the reason, Ori is not going to feel sorry for him. He hates feeling sorry for himself as it is, he doesn't have room for Fíli too. 

“You can keep it,” he says, meaning the notebook. “You all can look it over and then just bring it by whenever. Those are mostly for you.” He stands up, grabbing his bag and struggling to catch his balance for a moment. “I need to stop drinking that punch.” 

She stands too, a good deal unsteadier to judge from the way she has to catch herself. Tauriel laughs at her own clumsiness, then sobers a bit, asking, “Are you leaving already?” 

“I didn't even want to come. Besides, my dog will get worried.” More like he'll get in Ori's bed and drool all over the pillows. “You're welcome any time, you know. It's not like we divided custody, or anything.” Thank goodness for that, because Ori's not sure he would have won any of them in it. Kíli and Gimli are Fíli's family, and Tauriel has to be loyal to the band.

Outside, it's cold, and it helps clear his head a little. He never did like the holidays, once Christmas was done. It's too noisy, too wild. Everyone just wants to get drunk and light fireworks and hook up. Ori wanted to be that sort of person in school, but he knows himself better now. 

He's only past the first tree when he hears, “Going home?” Fíli is hiding behind the tree, smoking, which is terrible for his voice, really, so no wonder he's lurking. He'll catch it if anyone finds him. “What's wrong, out past your bedtime?” It's not mean. It'd be easier if it was. It's just a joke they used to have when they were younger and Ori was too scared to stay out past curfew. 

“I have to let my dog out,” Ori says, trying to be civil, even though he's a little drunk and upset over hearing that damn stupid song.

“You got a dog?” 

Why is he doing this? “I live alone. Dori and Nori thought it would make me safer, or something.” Really, Ori likes the company above all. 

Now Fíli comes out from behind the tree, and really, it's not fair how he makes Ori feel still. He doesn't want to be the desperate ex, still in love when he has every right to have moved on. “I haven't played that song since you left. Least, not in front of anyone.”

Reminding Ori of music helps him get his bearings back, and keeps him from wanting to come closer. “No, you've got a new song about me now, don't you?” And he's still really angry, because that stupid song had said things no one else but them would understand, had made references and jokes no one else should ever hear, and it had just hurt him so much. “Can't even turn on the bloody radio anymore.”

“Right,” he says, looking down. “That.” 

He's still in love with Fíli, he admits to himself suddenly, drunk and angry and cold. 

“I wrote it when I was trying to hate you.” And that stupid song is full of hate, really, hate and mockery and sadness and longing and it had broken Ori's heart to know he made Fíli feel those things. He can admit that right now, even if he won't want to later. He had listened over and over, heard everything in Fíli's heart, and wanted to cry. “I regretted doing it as soon as it started getting play. Putting us out there like that, that was wrong, and I'm sorry. I'd take it back if I could.” 

“But you can't.” Oh, he really had too much to drink. That stupid punch on top of the mixed drink and the beer had not been kind to his empty stomach. “It doesn't matter.” 

“Matters to me,” Fíli insists, coming close again, frowning deeply. “Ori, what happened in Germany...”

Ori doesn't want to think about Germany, or how angry they had been. 

“Good night, Fíli,” he says, and walks away. 

No one follows, though Kíli texts him a few times, as does Gimli, saying he's sorry he missed him, and he'll come by in a few days with the notebook. He gets home, his little dog trotting up to the door as he unlocks it, innocently greeting him like he hasn't been in the bed at all, like a good boy. Ori crouches down to his level, scratching behind his ears as he comes up to rest his paws on Ori's knees. “You were in the bed, Mumford,” Ori says, without any force, glad to see someone who isn't bringing up horrible feelings. “Bad dog.” 

He showers before bed, only fumbling a little in his drunken state, and falls into bed before midnight, Mumford slipping up by his knees. Ori falls asleep petting his head and watching a Dickens adaptation for the hundredth time. 

Over the next day or so, he finds his mind working again. He sits down at his workspace and lays the groundwork for four or five new songs, this being the easy part. Unfortunately, this year has not been the easiest. Oh, Ori can write fun, silly things, and easy drama, those are simple enough if he lets himself have a drink or a smoke, and a dose of whatever genre he's trying to recreate. But the sort he's starting now, no matter what he does, feel incomplete. 

They're still good, when he finishes. The studio loves them, and they all sell, usually as the one deep track on a pop artist's album, the one whoever it is connected to for whatever reason. But they never have the full feeling of the things he had written with the band, written for them. 

He works on them, getting the occasional message from Tauriel, Kíli, or Gimli about certain songs, asking if they're taken, or if he wants to come over and work on them a bit. He does, but he tells them they'll have to come over and see him if they want to. He doesn't feel up to trekking all over the city just now, right before New Year's. 

One song in the few he started on the day after the party shows a promise he hasn't felt for awhile, as though he's just scratched the surface of it. It has the chance to be something really good, he knows, he just has to be careful as he feels it out. 

Already he knows he wants the band to have it, before anyone else is offered, if he manages to get it right. 

December thirtieth, someone rings the bell to be let in the building. “It's me, Ori,” Fíli says, when Ori asks. “I've got your notebook.” 

That reminds Ori to murder Kíli, thinking dark thoughts as he buzzes Fíli in.

If he ducks into the bathroom while Fíli is coming up and cleans his teeth and straightens his hair, well. Fíli doesn't have to know. 

Manners demand he offer Fíli a beer once he's inside Ori's flat, so he does, and Fíli accepts. By the time Ori gets it, Fíli is looking over Ori's newest work, brow drawn down in a familiar expression. “It's not done,” Ori says, handing him the beer. 

“It's a good start,” he replies, taking it. Ori's dog is peeking around the corner at Fíli, and now Fíli notices him. “This the mutt?” 

“Yeah, this is Mumford,” Ori says, Fíli groaning in response. “He came with the name, I swear. We got him from a shelter.” 

Fíli picks him up, Mumford loving every second, attacking Fíli's face with enthusiastic kisses and wriggling like an idiot. “Suppose I can't hold it against you, then,” he says to the dog. “What is he?”

“He's called a Shiba Inu,” Ori answers, grateful for the neutral territory. “I liked how he looked. I didn't know they were so energetic.” Fíli has put him down, but Mumford is throwing himself at Fíli shamelessly now, eager for his new playmate to indulge him. “Careful, he bites. It doesn't really hurt much, but it scratches.” 

“You going to bite me?” Fíli crouches down, asking Mumford, teasing him until Mumford starts gnawing on his wrist, right over the tattoo there. “Ha, yeah, that's a fierce boy, that makes me feel better, yeah? You taking care of Ori for me?”

They both still, Fíli still playing with Mumford, but less animated. 

“He's a good guard dog,” Ori says awkwardly, and maybe it's only because he can still hear Fíli singing _Claddagh_. “Did you all some choices picked out? From the notebook?”

“Oh yeah,” Fíli sits on the sofa without asking, apparently intending to work, and Mumford wastes no time jumping in his lap. Ori thinks to tell him to get down, but that's unfair to the dog, because Ori lets him do it when it's just them. “They're all in love with _Ribbons_ , but see, look at this, where you have the chorus, I think this can be tighter...”

Ori forgets to be upset about Fíli sitting on his sofa, and sits by him, looking where he's pointing. “What do you mean?” He had thought it was fine with the melody he had begun for it. 

“I need a guitar, I can show you,” and Ori hates how he stands up without prompting and gets the guitar off the stand. It's tuned, fucking hell, because Ori knows a guitar that well even if he doesn't have half Fíli's talent with the strings. Why this damn guitar is still tuned, well, that's just silly to think more of. “You been playing more?” he asks conversationally, pushing Mumford off gently so he can take it.

“When I need to hammer out a melody,” Ori demurs, sitting on the sofa and crossing his legs. His socks don't match, he sees. One is grey, the other is blue with snowflakes. He takes the notebook from Fíli, determined to ignore that it bothers him that his socks don't match and Fíli is in this flat for the first time ever, because he let this flat after they broke up. Watching Fíli pick at the strings, his long fingers confident in their movements, wearing the rings he's worn since they were twenty, it's familiar in a way Ori isn't sure he's ready for. 

Who stays with their first love all their lives, after all? 

“We want Tauriel to sing it, but I think I've got the idea,” Fíli says, and starts. He's obviously been working on the words, changing the rhythm in small ways that flow better with the chords, at least at the tempo he's singing. Listening to him sing is distracting Ori, especially like this, when it's just them working out a song, like Germany never happened. 

“No,” Ori interrupts at one part, getting his bearings back when Fíli sings the bridge differently than what Ori has written. “When you change it the allusions are less neat, you can't change that part.” 

“It's not smooth though,” Fíli argues, setting the guitar aside so it's not between them and he can get a hold of the notebook. “Look, if we keep it like this -” he points at a part he's changed, “It doesn't flow like it should, not when she's singing.”

“So you sing it,” Ori says without thinking. The truth is, he wrote it with Fíli's voice in mind, but that's neither here nor there and Ori doesn't want to think about it, not with Fíli right beside him on the damn sofa. “If you can't make it work, let someone else have it.” That's not what he wants, but he doesn't want to fight with Fíli anymore either. 

He knows Fíli is about to say anything, but Ori's mobile goes off, and it's Dori, so he has to answer it. Dori gets worried when they don't answer. He excuses himself to the kitchen for some semblance of privacy, even if it's just to put distance between them for a few minutes. They're all dead, the whole band, because no way they weren't all in on this in some way or another. 

“Am I bothering you?” Dori asks, with the sound of being distracted. He's probably cooking. “I know you wanted to work through the holidays, I just wanted to make sure you still didn't want to come home for New Year's. Nori is even coming over.” That is a rarity, and it would have been tempting a few years ago, but Ori and Nori haven't exactly been on the best terms for awhile now. Dori knows that. Maybe he's hoping with the removal of The Problem in question, they'll get on better. 

Ori looks over at said Problem, sitting on his sofa and teasing his dog. Nori had never liked Ori being with Fíli, for a lot of reasons, some not wrong. “No, I've got some stuff started, and I want to finish it before I do anything else.” 

“It's just...” He hears the tap run, and turn off on Dori's side. “Bifur was telling me he'd seen you at Dís' house.” 

“Who?” 

“Bifur, plays the bass, with the scar?” Oh, one of the musicians Thorin was talking to. And the other is Bofur, Ori remembers now. They're related to one another somehow. “He came by yesterday, mentioned seeing you. He said you left early, that the band might have upset you?”

That's awfully nosy considering Ori doesn't know him. He wrinkles his nose, annoyed. “I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?” Ori hates when Dori asks things like this. It's so condescending, it makes Ori feel like he's thirteen and can't talk about the one ginger boy from shul without feeling like he's about to burn up. 

At this point, Fíli has picked the guitar up again, and has started strumming, eyeing some of Ori's new work on the table. It's a comfortable sound from before, when Ori would write the words, and Fíli would find the sound of them, and he quietly promises to kill Kíli later. Why would he let Fíli come over? 

Worse, on the other end of the line, Dori clearly hears, and says, “I see. I'll just be letting you go, then,” a little too brightly. “I'll see you after the New Year.” He hangs up before Ori can explain, or at least try to, leaving Ori to stand there in his little galley kitchen, the mobile pressed to his shoulder as he listens to Fíli play. 

He's being stupid. Germany hadn't been an isolated incident. They'd been fighting a lot then, both of them under more stress than they were used to, and everything had just felt so desperate. Ori hadn't even wanted to go with the band to Germany at that point, had thought maybe it would be better if he stayed home and had some time to himself, but Fíli had begged him to go, promised they'd do some of the silly, tourist-y things while they were there. 

They hadn't had time, of course. Ori had gone by himself to a few places, and enjoyed it, but coming back to empty hotel rooms and only waking up when Fíli finally came to bed, if he ever did, had felt like too much on top of the fights they were already having. The last stupid argument hadn't even been over something important. 

But it had happened, and he should be getting over it now.

He doesn't want to feel this way anymore. 

“I need you to leave,” he says, not sitting back down on the sofa, his mobile still in his hand. 

Fíli sets the guitar aside, but otherwise doesn't move. “Why?” His expression is stony, the look he gets when he's trying not to lose his temper. 

“Because it's my flat, and I can't have you here right now.” 

He still doesn't move, damn him. “Why can you work with everyone else, and not me?” 

“You _know_ why.” And it's not fair for him to ask they go back to being something without being anything, like they can just pick up one part of the relationship without the other. “Why do you even want to be here?” 

He rakes his hand through his hair, shrugging. “Maybe I miss you.” 

“It doesn't seem like it.” Because if he'd really missed Ori, he wouldn't have waited so long to try and mend fences. He wouldn't have put a damn song on the radio about them, one Ori has to hear all the bloody time. And he wouldn't still be breaking Ori's heart. “Why did you have to play it? Why are you still playing that stupid song?” 

_Claddagh_ , written for Ori, back when Ori was just finding out the hopeless feelings he had for his friend weren't hopeless at all, that Fíli felt the same, had for a long time, and they'd been new and happy and frightened they were going to ruin everything between themselves by acting on it. And Fíli had written him that stupid song, about his own fears of fucking it all up, but wanting to try, wanting to be with him. 

Ori wants to hate that stupid song so much, but it's impossible. 

“Because you were standing there.” And he has no right to get up and come close to Ori, his hands in his pockets, looking sorry. “I don't know. Wanted to play it for you again. Didn't really care about anyone else there.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Guess that was kind of an arse-hole move.”

“It was,” Ori agrees, not sure where they go from here. “I suppose it doesn't matter. People love that stupid song.” 

“Don't call it that,” Fíli protests, his eyes narrowed. “It's not stupid. None of it was.”

Apparently they're heading into uncomfortable. Ori pushes up the sleeve of his jumper, rubbing his arm by reflex. Fíli's got his own flannel button-up rolled up to the elbow, so his sleeve tattoo is showing. “Why are you dressing like a hipster?” 

“Says the boy who was a hipster before they existed,” Fíli replies, plucking at Ori's jumper. No one had been more surprised than Ori when they both looked up one day and it seemed like everyone was wearing the same knit caps, scarves and jumpers Ori had been wearing since he was four. “It's Kíli's. I didn't have anything clean. Not a good look?” 

Ori shrugs. Fíli and Kíli have always been the sort of boys who wore everything easily, and while it's not Ori's favourite look on him, it's not bad either. No worse than when he was still wearing Thorin and Frerin's old tee shirts, emblazoned with the names of bands that had broken up before they were born. If anything, that might have been more hipster. “You got a new tattoo?” The one on Fíli's left wrist is unfamiliar. 

Fíli holds his hand out, so Ori can get a look. It's another heavy, Celtic-inspired one, like most of his others. “For my birthday,” he explains, his skin warm under Ori's cool fingers. “What about you? Any new ones?” Ori nods. “Can I see?” 

“It's on my shoulder.” Not exactly anywhere Fíli could be seeing right now. Ori had even missed him in the most mundane way after he got it done, because it had been hard to reach with the anti-microbial soap and later, the lotion when it itched. “I still kind of want you to leave.” He rubs his wrist one last time. “But it's all right. We have to get over this if I'm going to keep working with the band.” 

Fíli huffs, and asks, “Why are you the one who gets to be angry? You left, not me. You're the one who broke up with me over the bloody _phone_. I'm the angry one, all right? I'm the one who gets to be hurt and -”

“And _what_? You're the one who gets to be _what_?” Because of course he's going to take this road. “I left, but you didn't stop me. You didn't even notice.”

“I was barely sleeping! I came back in the morning, you were gone, I thought you'd just gone to another museum, or wherever you were going without me! It wasn't until I woke up -”

“What did you want me to do, hang around in the hotel room and watch you sleep?” He's ridiculous, he's always ridiculous about things like this, and even before, when they were friends, he was always so bloody ridiculous. “Why did you even want me to come to Germany? You obviously didn't have time for me, you knew you wouldn't, so why would you ask me out there?” The dog is getting anxious, pacing around the room now and looking at them both like they've lost their minds. Ori doesn't blame him. 

The stupid mobile rings again, but this time, it's Kíli, and Ori is going to kill him. He goes to answer but Fíli takes it from him before he can and dismisses the call, setting the mobile down on the table by the door. “I didn't know Germany was going to be like that,” he says firmly. “And I was bloody tired the whole damn time, and every time I came back to the room, you weren't there, just like you were never here at home. The only time I was seeing you was when we were working, and you were distracted then too! So don't try to put this all on me!” 

“I'm not!” He isn't, he really isn't, he keeps telling everyone it was both of them, being fair about the whole matter, but what does Fíli expect from him? “What are you asking for, Fíli, because really, I don't know. I really don't. And you were the one who went and played that damn stupid song in front of everyone we know -”

“I only played it because you were there, and I wanted to get your attention, since I couldn't seem to do it before.” It's bitter and mean, but Ori's feeling a little bitter and mean right now as well. 

“So you embarrassed me in front of half the people I have to work with?” Now everyone is going to give him that look when he sees them again, that nervous, awkward one that betrays how much they really want to ask, but are too polite to actually do it. 

There's an ugly twist to Fíli's mouth when he asks, “Because it was so easy for me to tell everyone where you were in Germany?” Ori actually hadn't thought of that, and he shakes his head. “Yeah, it was a lot of fun, especially when one of the staff sold the story and I had to get brought up in front of Balin to reassure him that most of it wasn't true. And then I had to answer the same damn questions about you to everyone with a bloody microphone.” 

That hadn't been Ori's intention at all. “I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd get in trouble.” 

“Felt like I was a kid again, getting lectured by Nori.” He half-laughs, shaking his head. “Bet Nori was thrilled when he found out.” 

“Still not talking to him.”

Ori crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the wall, aware, always aware, of how close Fíli is to him. The first time they'd kissed had been just like this, now that he thinks about it. Fíli had been his ride to and from just about everywhere, and they'd been finding more and more reasons to linger wherever they were, talking, Ori scared he was keeping Fíli but wanting to have him as long as he could. He'd been almost sure Fíli liked him the same way, but he'd kept pushing it down, sure he was seeing what he wanted to see, but still _hoping_. 

He'd been leaning against one of the trees, the car right there, but neither of them moving towards it just yet, Fíli closer than ever, and some spark of bravery had Ori slide his hands into the front pocket of Fíli's hoodie, laughing at himself and embarrassed, claiming he was cold. He had been. But it had also pulled Fíli closer, over that friendly line, and when Fíli hadn't moved back, Ori had finally pressed his mouth against Fíli's. 

Fíli had kissed him back, and that was that.

Maybe it's bookends, Ori thinks morbidly. This is how they started, this is how they end. 

“Why aren't you talking to him?” 

Because he hadn't even pretended to be sorry when Ori was sitting at Dori's kitchen table, upset and trying not to cry into his tea. They'd had another big row, right in Dori's kitchen until Dori shouted at them both to stop it. Nori had ended up storming out in a huff to sit and smoke outside and Ori went home, and neither of them have had much to say to the other since. “Because he's still a prat,” he answers. “He tried to set me up with one of his mates.” 

“Waited long, didn't he?” 

“Longer than you did,” Ori says without thinking, and hates himself because it makes it sound like he was actually following the stupid story. 

Fíli rubs the back of his head. “That wasn't what it looked like.” 

It probably wasn't, not if Fíli is here and trying to do...whatever it is he's trying to do. “Let's just work, all right?” He's tired of the conversation, of the whole thing. He can only shout so much in one day before he's exhausted of it, and he's reached his limit. “You're going to be busy tomorrow. Kíli said you lot were playing at the New Year's show for the city.”

“You're not coming?” When Ori raises his eyebrows at him, Fíli sticks his hands back in his pockets and looks away. “You're still welcome backstage.” Ori had always liked being backstage, able to hear the music, and feel all the energy of a good show, without having to be squashed into a crowd. 

“Me and Mumford have plans,” he says to that. 

“Ori...” 

“You didn't come after me. Even after the tour in Germany was over, you didn't come after me. You put a stupid song on the radio about me, and we avoided one another.” That all says something, doesn't it? Bookends. “Just leave it. We never should have started it.” 

The look on Fíli's face hurts Ori, but he doesn't take it back. “You don't mean that.” 

He doesn't say anything one way or the other, just goes back to the sofa and picks up his notebook. “If Tauriel's going to sing it, I need to rework it entirely. I can have it back to you in a week or so.” There's a few more tabbed off, so Ori picks one at random, one he wrote with Kíli in mind. Fíli's voice is close enough, even if he sings slower than Kíli. 

He sits beside Ori on the sofa, and Mumford, apparently willing to forgive them now that they've stopped fighting, gets up between them, vibrating in his excitement to be near Ori and his new favourite person. Fíli smiles down at the dog and scratches behind his ears, until Mumford is lying against his thigh, blissful under the new attention. “He's a good dog,” Fíli says. 

“He is,” Ori replies, because Mumford is a mess, but he's a good dog.

“Can't believe you got a dog named Mumford.” 

“You would have taken him too, if you'd seen him.” Poor Mumford had been huddled in a corner, unlike the other dogs, sad and dejected. “He needed me.” Ori hadn't even wanted a dog, truthfully. He wasn't a pet person. Dori and Nori had insisted if he was going to live alone in the middle of town, he needed some kind of protection. Ori had been unmoved until they passed Mumford's kennel. “After I held him, I couldn't leave him there.” Mumford had been so eager to be held by Ori, cuddling into him and looking up at him, begging Ori to take him. “I like him.” 

Mumford likes Fíli, that much is clear. “I couldn't just leave Kíli, Gimli, and Tauriel to hang in Germany. And I was angry with you for leaving.” He can't just leave it, can he? “Once I got home, I thought we'd work it out, but you'd moved out without even telling me. Thought you didn't want me to come after you. By the time I thought different, it seemed like it was too late.”

Ori keeps his eyes on the music. “I don't like this arrangement, but I couldn't seem to make it different.”

Fíli picks the guitar back up. 

It's too familiar, far too much so, but not in a bad way. More in a settling sort of way Ori's not sure he understands just yet.

Fíli stays long enough to have tea, and the pair of them muddle their way through the songs the band wants with as little awkwardness as they might manage between them, but make no real headway. There's something missing, that spark that made everything they did together brilliant. It feels like a waste of time, and it likely is. Nothing sounds any better, and Fíli would be better off working on the music with the rest of the band.

He's ready to end it when Fíli looks again at the new song Ori has been working on, and starts to play it without prompting. Just like that, the core of it that Ori has been trying to see is revealed, and he has to start scribbling down the music as Fíli is playing it, already able to hear the other instruments in his mind. “ _Down by the river, by and by, we'll follow the paths, we'll follow the footsteps that they left behind...._ ” 

He joins in without meaning too, his voice not as strong as Fíli's, but able to follow his lead. He crosses his legs again, not needing to look at the papers to know the words. Snatches of it have been forming in his head for months now, since the autumn, when he'd spent some time at the family home, watching the slow turn of the season and feeling like he was waiting for something. 

They haven't sung together in an age, and Ori's surprised at how much it hurts. Out of the handful of attempts at dating, one had been a musician. He had tried to play music with Ori though, insisting, and that had been the end of it. Ori had been willing to make a dozen excuses, but sitting here with Fíli, there's no excuses. 

When Ori first met Fíli, he was thirteen, almost fourteen. Ori had been drawing since he could remember by then, and playing and writing music since he could hold a flute, taught both by his mother. Fíli joined the art club, not exactly the first place Ori thought he would see someone who also played rugby. He was good too, and the more he and Ori got to know each other, the more things they had found in common. Art and music and songs and even something Ori thought rather childish of himself, which was exploring the forest around the village. Climbing trees, looking at plants, watching the fish in the river. The pair of them, and sometimes Kíli and Gimli too, and later, Tauriel. But at first, just him and Fíli. 

He'd been eighteen when he realised he was in love with Fíli, something everyone else seemed to know long before him. And Fíli too. Everyone apparently knew before they did. 

It's still there, that connection between them, even when Ori wishes it wasn't.

The song finishes, quicker than Ori thought it would. Fíli sets the guitar aside and stands up, grabbing his hoodie and putting it back on. “Fíli?” 

“This was a mistake,” he says, adjusting his hat. 

“But it was sounding good,” Ori protests, standing up too. He doesn't know what he wants, not really, only that he misses this part of himself, this life. 

Fíli is still fixing his hat, finally yanking it off and messing up his hair. “Do we have a chance of getting back together?” 

“What?” Durins: too tall, too strong, and too bloody blunt. “Why would you ask me that?” He always asks questions Ori isn't ready for, always pushes. 

“Because I want to know if I'm wasting my time or not!” 

“Didn't we just have this conversation?” Ori asks, too loud to be calm, and Mumford is whining now. “Just...just stop, all right, we're done, we decided -” He thinks he did, at least. He thinks he decided in Germany, only he doesn't know, not really.

“No one decided anything!” He looks like he wants to kick something, but that's not like him. Fíli keeps his temper banked, but it's somehow worse because his anger lasts much longer than Ori's, the stubborn arse. Sometimes that drove Ori mad, because he shouts when he's angry, and then once he's done, Ori doesn't want to be angry anymore. Fíli though, Fíli holds on and forces things to their end. He always makes Ori look at things he doesn't want to, makes him admit things he'd rather keep inside.

Sometimes that had been a good thing though. Actually, it had usually been for the best, painful as it always was. 

Fíli not talking now, that only means he's gathering his words. Ori's not sure he wants to hear it, but Fíli is going to say it. So Ori beats him to it, because there's something he needs, even if he hates admitting it. “Do you have to play that song tomorrow?” 

“Which one?” He finally looks at Ori, and he must see the answer when he does. “People play that song at weddings, Ori. Anyone who can play a guitar learns it and plays it in coffee shops. I can't make it disappear. And yeah, it is on the set list. Balin practically ordered it. I'm already on his bad side.” He looks away again, at Mumford, the flat, something. Nothing. “Are we really done? You don't love me anymore?” 

“Is that what you think happened?” 

“I don't know.” The dog is walking around them, his nails clicking on the floor and the tile of the kitchen. “I was fucking angry with you, but I thought I could fix it still. You know, I wasn't at a party, or anything. I was walking around in a park for five hours. Ended up sitting on a bench and listening to the bloody birds wake up. I just needed to think. I wasn't cheating on you, or anything. Wasn't even drinking.” He swallows, and Ori thinks he might be close to crying. Fíli can't cry. Ori hates seeing Fíli sad, even now when he wants to just not care. He thinks he doesn't want to care, at least. “Got called into the offices, had to go to interviews. Finally got my head together, thought I was ready to have it out with you. Only you were gone. You didn't even give me a chance. You just ran away.” He has a point. Why does he always have a point? “I bought flowers. Walked by a stand, they had them. You like flowers. Thought it might remind you that you loved me. That I loved you. Only you were gone already.”

He bought flowers. Of course he did. 

If it wasn't before, Ori thinks his heart might really be broken now, picturing Fíli coming back to the hotel room with flowers and finding the room empty. 

“I hate it when people think they know what went on between us,” Ori says. “You put that song on the radio, and they think I'm...whatever they think.” In truth, Ori had looked the song up online over a dozen times before he finally dared scroll down to the comments. Most were the usual inane drivel someone finds on YouTube, but some had been clever enough to put the pieces together and know it was about him and Fíli. Some had been cruel. Some had been sympathetic. “I'll end up watching the show. I always do. I just don't know if I can...hear them both, in the same set. It's like...” He swallows. “Like bookends.”

Fíli nods, huffing. “Yeah. I get that.” He looks at Ori, and seems to be about to say something more, but then Ori's mobile goes off yet again, and he finally answers it, grabbing the thing from where Fíli left it, seeing Kíli's picture on it. “What?” he asks, trying to think straight.

“You been outside today?” Kíli asks.

“No, why?” 

“Before you do, I want to say this is not my fault in any way, shape or form, and I do not deserve to be thrashed for it.”

There's a muffled noise, and then Tauriel is on the phone instead. “It's not really that bad, you know, just a few pictures, and it must have been someone's date who talked, no one in the family would, you know that -” 

Ori doesn't like the sound of any of this. “What are you talking about?” 

He finds out a minute later when Gimli sends him a picture of the front of one of the tabloids, where there's a grainy picture of Fíli and Ori standing in front of Dís' house. _Is Our Favourite Rock Star Back With His Songwriter Ex?_ “Oh no, this is not happening again.” 

“What?” Fíli is asking at the same time he's looking at his own phone, obviously seeing the same messages as Ori is. “Damn it, if Balin has seen this..." He hardly even gets a moment to say it before his mobile is ringing. “Damn it," he says aloud, telling Ori they have no such luck, and answers it. “Yeah, no, I saw. It's not what you think. Yeah, I'm on my way.” He pauses as Balin speaks, cringing. “I'm not at the house, I'm...” The pause is the giveaway, and Ori knows Balin is even angrier now. 

It's not in the script for Fíli to abruptly hang up the phone and silence it, shoving it in his bag. 

“You're not supposed to be here, are you?” Ori hates asking, because before all this had happened, Balin had liked him quite a bit. All their families had been friends growing up, and Balin had been a part of his life for a long time. But Balin had always been closer to Fíli's family, and really, Balin's job is to take care of the band, take care of Fíli. “With me, right now, I mean. Balin told you to keep away, didn't he?” 

“Thinks it's drama I don't need,” Fíli confirms. “Was kind of a big deal, you know? A gay lead singer. After Germany, everything could have gone against the band, depending on which way the gossip went. It was just all...a lot. So now...”

So now there's trouble. 

“Go see Balin,” Ori says, because he doesn't want to have this conversation any more. 

He waits until Fíli is gone before he impulsively texts, _you can play the song._

There's no reply, and after awhile, Ori stops waiting for one. He opens his laptop instead, and with a drink in him, feels ready to delve into the comments on the pictures that are now everywhere on the sites. He's stayed off of them all for the most part, but he still knows all the names. 

The comments are just what he expected. Some happy, some hurtful. A lot of them call him names. Some are more logical, older fans pointing out that this was obviously taken at a party, and maybe they just ran into one another. But even those sometimes have nasty little add-ons, or, maybe worse, hopeful ones. He's always hated this, that there are so many people so invested in their lives, in their relationship. It's none of their business, but they love the band, love the image of Fíli, and so Ori is caught up in it, no matter what he does. 

And if he's with Fíli, that means he has to handle all of this, Fíli being dedicated to the band, to the success, to the legacy of Thorin. Thorin and his band are still listed in Top Ten lists, have shelves of awards, and for Fíli, and even Kíli, it's always been about honouring their talents and proving they're not just living in his shadow. That they're good. Ori had loved helping too, giving them his own talents, and Gimli and Tauriel as well. 

Ori's closes all the pages and lies down in the bed, allowing Mumford in even though he shouldn't. “Don't know what to do any more,” he says to the dog. “I miss him so much. Not just him, everything about the band. I miss writing with them. I miss...they were like my family, you know? I fit with them. And part of that is fitting against Fíli, because I do. And I miss him. I'm still angry about everything, because we weren't talking, and that wasn't right, we always talked about everything. And some of it was my fault, because I wasn't listening when he wanted to, because I was angry.” 

Too many times, they hadn't talked like they should have. 

Mumford keeps looking at him with his large brown eyes, ears twitching like he's really listening. “You like him, don't you?” The dog doesn't answer, not even when Ori scratches under his chin. He doesn't have to. “Good dog. You love me, don't you?” 

It's a silly question. Mumford is a dog, and Ori took him home from a scary place. Of course he loves Ori. A dog's love is easy. It's people that are hard. People need more than being fed on time and taken for walks and the occasional head scratch. 

He falls asleep drunk and wakes up with a dry mouth that takes what feels like a litre of juice to quench. He's drinking yet another bottle as he takes Mumford for his morning walk in the park, Mumford barking at the ducks as Ori sits on a bench and checks his mobile. There's a few messages from Kíli, Gimli, and Tauriel. Variations of apologies, explanations, and pleas for him to not be angry. 

For the first time, he realizes how bad this has been on them. They've tried so hard not to take sides, but neither of them have made it easy for everyone else. 

It's all just too much sometimes.

He takes a nap, and then it's time for lunch and an afternoon walk, again with Mumford, even though the dog doesn't need it. Ori gets some chips from a cart, and Mumford is happy to eat what Ori doesn't. They watch the birds some more, then go to the shops, Mumford content to hide in Ori's cloth grocery bag. If any of the clerks notice the bag is squirming, they don't say anything. He only buys some wine and crisps, so he makes it's not too bad on his shoulder until he's out of the shop and Mumford can run free again. 

At the flat, Ori makes himself a salad and gets supper started, missing the flat he shared with Fíli for the hundredth time. He'd spent a lot of money over the years making that kitchen exactly what he wanted, and it had been oddly painful to start over from scratch. Cooking had been something they did together, something they both liked and knew, or something they were looking at in a book or on Ori's tablet. They hadn't always been very good at it, getting the measurements wrong or the taste or getting distracted. 

Ori covers his mouth with his hand, trying not to remember how many times things had gotten burned because one of them had been more interested in the other than the food. 

Eventually he turns on the television, to the New Year's event. It's already a song in to their set, but the opener is usually just whatever they hate the most at the time. He watches them play, smiling when the camera focuses on Tauriel and the way she smiles awkwardly and tries to pretend she doesn't know it's there. Out of all of them, Tauriel has been the worst at being famous. All she's ever wanted to do is play bass and sing.

He texts her, so she'll see it when she gets back to her phone, _You're such a pretty dork_ , and reminds Gimli to brush his hair, because really, it's a rat's nest even when it's up in a bun. And to put on a shirt, because it's cold out. He's rather sure he's the only one, judging from Twitter. Of course, Legolas feels the need to comment, from his band's Twitter, which starts some very impressive drama from the fans on both sides. Ori laughs out loud when it gets really funny, too many fans apparently suffering under the delusion Legolas' comment was serious.

He stops laughing when the music slows, and starts with a familiar rhythm. The song, the one that's been on the radio, and it's Fíli strumming. Only then he stops, and there's silence.

“I don't want to play this song,” he says into the microphone, in front of thousands of people, and all the ones watching. “I wrote this song when I was really angry. Said a lot of things I didn't mean. And I'm sorry now.” A thousand people talk, a murmur so loud it's a dull roar, but Fíli keeps talking. “I don't think I'm ever going to play that song live ever again.” 

The chords change, and the rest of them pick up the familiar song easily, Ori clutching the throw blanket around him tightly. 

“But I'll play this one, because I mean this one.” It's _Claddagh_ , of course it is, strummed simply over the cheering of the crowd. “ _These promises I make..._ ” And the crowd sings along, in one large, off-key chorus, the quiet little song Fíli wrote for Ori back when it all began. He plays it, and the crowd forgets the other song. They sing along to the one Fíli has been singing since the beginning. The hopeful one, the one that Fíli wrote when they were trying to find their way through this all.

Twitter is on fire, when Ori dares check it.

But it's not what he expected. He expects anger, and eye-rolling and insults. What he sees is people talking about their weddings, how their first dance was to this song. People talking about their first love, their first kiss. All love, drowning out the few derisive ones. 

Ori feels the tears rolling down his face before he even registers he's crying. 

“ _I'll try not to let you down, I'll try to be the man I see reflected in your eyes, oh, but I want to be him, don't you know? I'll be him, oh, I want to be him,_ ” Fíli sings, and Ori closes his eyes, remembers sitting on the bed in his dorm room and watching Fíli sing the song for the first time and realizing his crush ran so much deeper. 

The crowd sings with him, all the way 'til the end. So does Ori, wrapped up in the throw blanket on his sofa. 

He's still up at one in the morning, answering e-mails and texts and working on the new music when he gets a text from Kíli asking Ori to buzz him in. Surprised, he does, and opens the door without thinking when there's a knock.

Only it's not Kíli. It's Fíli, with a plastic takeaway bag in one hand and the other shoved in his hoodie pocket. “I'm going to kill him,” Ori says. 

“Don't. I nicked his mobile.” That's very like him. “Can I come in?” Ori moves aside, and Fíli comes in, setting the bag on the counter. “It's Mongolian Beef and chicken lo mein and some wonton soup. As always.” 

Ori looks up at him, thinking of that song. “You said you weren't going to play the song any more.”

“You _were_ watching,” Fíli says, cupping Ori's face in his hands. “I'm not. I was angry when I wrote that fucking song, and I wanted to get back at you. It was stupid, and it hurt you, and I'm sorry for it. We're never playing it again.” Ori doesn't fight him when he rests their temples together. “But I'm going to keep playing _Claddagh_. I mean it when I play that song. I always have.” 

“I know.” He reaches up and brushes Fíli's back behind his ears. “I miss you.” 

“You do?” Fíli asks, smiling. 

“I do,” Ori confirms. 

Fíli's smile grows, as he pulls Ori in closer by the waist, their temples still touching. “I love you,” Fíli says. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” Ori replies, and rises up on his toes, kissing Fíli.


End file.
